Albert Pujols’ Wife Tells Radio Show Cardinals Fans Were Deceived About Team’s Offers to Husband

The wife of former St. Louis Cardinal’s player Albert Pujols is claiming that Cardinals fans were led to believe that the team had concrete offers for her husband when that was not the case.

Deidre Pujols went on a local radio station and said that reports that the Cardinals offered Albert a longer-than-5-year contract were false and quite frankly, hurtful.

On St. Louis’ 99.1 FM, Deidre told the “Greg and Sandi Show” that if the offers that had been reported were true, her husband would still “have a bird on the bat” and be with the Cardinals.

“What I’m saying,” she told the show, “is it wasn’t a guaranteed situation. When you have somebody say, ‘We want you to be a Cardinal for life’ and only offer you a five-year deal ... it kind of confused us. ... Well, we got over that insult and felt like Albert had given so much of himself to baseball and into the community that he at least deserved the opportunity to have real life-long—you know, I tell you what—we didn’t want to go through this again. Free agency, it’s stressful.”

The team initially offered Pujols a five-year, $130 million contract. They then came back with a five-year, $198 million offer during Spring training, but he was holding out for a longer contract. Their final offer was reportedly $210 million, 10-year deal, but the fine print was not ideal.

In the end, Pujols signed with the Los Angeles Angels with a 10-year, $254 million contract.

The Angels is only the second MLB team Pujols has ever played with, his entire career having thus far been with the Cardinals.